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Roger Scruton fired as government housing adviser after speaking of 'Soros empire'

The professor also claimed the word Islamophobia was 'invented'

April 10, 2019 12:54
Sir Roger Scruton
1 min read

Academic Roger Scruton has been fired as a government housing adviser after an interview in which he claimed George Soros had an "empire" in Hungary and that the word Islamophobia was "invented".

"Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts," Prof Scruton told the New Statesman, in a manner the magazine called "heedless of the antisemitic portrayal of the philanthropist George Soros as a Jewish puppet-master".

Prof Scruton, who chaired the Government's commission meant to drive house-building, also said the word Islamophobia was "invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion" and said it was "very frightening" how "each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one".

Within hours of the interview being published on Wednesday, the government confirmed Prof Scruton had been dismissed from his part-time role.